Soul Beach

answer is so precise, so Tim , that I want to believe it’s true. Yet what about the police, and my mum, not to mention the tabloids? Oh, and Mr Bryant’s statistics which show that most women are murdered by their partners?
    And then there’s what Meggie said herself, about passion and hatred being so close. I try to stop thinking like someone who knows him, and start thinking like the rest of the world. I might not get another chance to interrogate him.
    ‘Then why are the police so convinced you did it?’
    ‘They want a quick fix. Or maybe I’ve been set up.’
    ‘Oh, Tim, who would go to the trouble of setting you up?’
    ‘The real killer. Alice, I’m the obvious person to frame, because the police always look first at the person who is closest to the victim.’
    ‘And the last person to see her alive!’ I point out.
    ‘Second last. I swear.’
    ‘But people in the bar saw you arguing that night.’
    ‘There’s a bloody big difference between arguing with your girlfriend and killing her!’
    The ferocity in Tim’s voice takes me by surprise. I’ve never heard that tone from him before. ‘You sound angry.’
    ‘Of course I’m angry. How would you feel if you’d lost the person who means the most to you in the world, and then everyone thought you’d killed that person? Eh? If every time you walked down the street or into a lecture theatre, people whispered and glared but never came out and said it. If the police were there every time you looked round, waiting for you to make a mistake.’
    He’s shouting, now, and I have to hold the phone away from my ear. I blink, and I have to remind myself that he’s locked away in Greenwich, and I’m safely in my bedroom. Mild-mannered, spider-rescuing Tim has a scary side. But does that mean . . .
    After a silence, he says, ‘Alice, listen. I apologise. You’re the last person I should be shouting at. Not like it’s helping my case, either, is it?’ And he tries to laugh, but it’s fake.
    ‘No.’ If he can get so angry with me, then why not with my sister? Sahara said he had a temper, and Meggie can . . . could be flirty and flighty and wickedly cruel: might that have tipped him over the edge? Jealousy is potent. Until I saw Danny on that video with the girl, I didn’t realise how potent. ‘Do you get angry a lot?’ I ask, still determined to get to the truth.
    ‘Not before she died. I understand why you ask, but I’ve never been a moody person. You must remember that.’
    ‘It’s hard to remember how anything was before.’
    I hear a sigh. ‘I know, Alice. God, I know. I took happiness for granted. How stupid can someone be?’
    It’s so hard to stop myself agreeing. Ask more questions , I tell myself. I should have written them down. ‘Why should I believe anything you say?’
    ‘Because your sister was everything to me, Alice. She . . . well, she lit up my world. Not just mine. She was like the brightest flame, and now the world feels so dark without her. Does that make sense?’
    ‘Mmm.’
    ‘You do believe that I loved her, don’t you?’
    Danny’s face pops into my mind. Love. Am I really in love with him or is it just a crush, like my sister hopes? I know I’d protect Danny from anything and everything, if I could. That I’d never hurt him.
    I avoid answering. ‘If it wasn’t you, who was it?’ I ask Tim.
    ‘Someone who didn’t really know her, because no one who knew her could do that. But someone who thought they owned her. You know the killer spent time with her afterwards? Brushing her hair?’
    I stop breathing. I do know that. But most people don’t. Sure, Zoe told the press about a halo of hair around her, but only the police and her family knew that the halo wasn’t accidental.
    Correction. The police, us. And the killer . Or did they tell Tim too, when they were trying to break him?
    ‘What now, Tim?’
    For a long while, all I can hear is his breathing. Then, ‘I don’t know. Everything seems hopeless without her, and even if the police do find who really did it, then the pointing and the stares won’t stop. It’ll never be over for me.’
    I know he’s right. None of us will ever be the same. Though of course it’s my sister who has lost the most.
    This phone call was a dreadful mistake. I don’t feel better, I feel worse: more confused than ever. Tim’s so believable, yet he hasn’t told me anything that would put him in the clear, and my own instincts are lost in the confusion.
    ‘We could